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Doctor Who

Whostrology: A Time Traveller's Almanac

Whostrology: an astrological system based upon the travels of a certain Time Lord. The mythic qualities of his tales of adventure form the basis for this book of daily readings that can help you shape your life and live in a truly Whovian way.

It has been said that the Doctor was born under the sign of the crossed computers. This could mean one of two things. It could be nothing more than a flippant remark to a passing local; or it could be a reference to the stars as seen from the Doctor’s home world. As any visible constellations are an arbitrary set of images fully dependant on the observer’s location in time and space as well as their cultural heritage, it can also be argued that some people have nothing better to do than make things up.

Whostrology is a book of daily readings, zodiac signs and explanations, and other Who-based astrological elements, designed to allow every Who fan to lead a life of peace and ordered calm.

Note: Please do not query non-receipt of orders until 28 working days after the publication date (see bar on right hand side) or the date the order was placed, whichever is the later.

On an unnamed planet, a race called the Gonds are subject to the mysterious Krotons, unseen beings to whom they provide their brightest intelligences as “companions”. Thara, son of the Gond leader Selris, is the only one of his race to object to this practice. The Doctor, Jamie and Zoe arrive in time to witness the death of one of the chosen companions and intervene to save Vana, the other selected for this fate, using her survival as a means to convince Selris and the Gonds of the malign influence of the Krotons on their society. The Doctor calls it "self-perpetuating slavery” by which the brightest in Gond society have been removed. Similarly, there are large gaps in their knowledge, especially relating to chemistry. This situation has been in existence for many years since the Krotons arrived in their spaceship, polluting the lands beyond the Gond city and killing much of the Gond population.

Thara uses the disquiet of the situation to lead a rebellion and attack the Teaching Machines of the Krotons in the Hall of Learning. This prompts a crystalline probe to appear and defend the Machines, and warn the Gonds to cease their rebellion. Zoe now tries the Teaching Machines and is selected to be a “companion” of the Krotons. The Doctor elects the same fate and both are summoned into the Dynotrope where they are subjected to a mental attack. Zoe deduces that the Krotons have found a way to transfer mental power into pure energy, while the Doctor busies himself with taking chemical samples of the Kroton environment. Circumstances now trigger the creation of two Krotons from chemical vats within the Dynatrope (the Kroton spaceship). The newly created Krotons capture Jamie but are really seeking the Doctor and Zoe, the “High Brains”, who have now left the Dynatrope. It takes Jamie quite some time before he is able to make an effective escape.

Eelek and Axus, two councillors previously loyal to the Krotons, who begin to rally for all-out war with the Krotons, have now seized the initiative in Gond society. The more level headed Selris is deposed, but warns that an all-out attack will not benefit his people. Instead he has decided to attack the machine from underneath by destabilising its very foundation in the underhall. Eelek has Selris arrested and also reasserts control by negotiating with the Krotons that they will leave the planet if provided with the two “High Brains” who can help them power and pilot their ship. Zoe and the Doctor are forced into the Dynatrope and Selris dies providing them with a phial of acid which the Doctor adds to the Kroton vats. Outside, Jamie and the scientist Beta launch an attack on the structure of the ship using sulphuric acid. This two pronged assault destroys the tellurium-based Krotons and their craft. The Dynatrope dissolves away and the Gonds are free at last - choosing Thara rather than the cowardly and ambitious Eelek to lead them.

Holmes had originally submitted The Trap to the BBC as a stand-alone science-fiction serial in 1965. Head of Serials Shaun Sutton rejected the serial as being not the kind of thing the BBC was interested in making at the time, but suggested the writer pitch it to the Doctor Who production office as an idea for that series. Holmes did so, and although story editor Donald Tosh was interested, the scripts went no further at the time.

Some years later, assistant script editor Terrance Dicks found the story in the production office files when clearing a backlog, and decided to develop it with Holmes as a personal project, in case other scripts fell through. When the latter event occurred, Dick Sharples script Prison in Space a comedic dystopian tale where females rule with dollybird guards proved unworkable, Dicks was able to present the serial to his superiors as a ready production. Director David Maloney agreed the serial was viable, and it went before the cameras very quickly as an emergency replacement.

Several scenes were filmed at the Tank Quarry and West of England Quarry on the Malvern Hills.[4][5]

Cast notes

Broadcast and reception

The serial was repeated on BBC2 in November 1981, daily (Monday–Thursday, 9–12 November 1981) at 5:40 pm as part of "The Five Faces of Doctor Who", a series of repeats to bridge the long gap between seasons 18 and 19. At the time it was the only four part Patrick Troughton serial in the BBC archive.

VHS, CD and DVD releases

Episode One of The Krotons exists as both a 16 mm film print and a 35 mm telerecording negative. Clips taken from a VidFIREd transfer of the high quality 35 mm negative can be seen in the restoration documentary on the DVD release of The Aztecs and as part of the 40th Anniversary music video on Doctor Who DVDs released in 2003.

Target novelisation

The Seventh Doctor and Ace visit a human colony on the planet Terra Alpha, and are unsettled by the planet's unnaturally happy society. Cheerful music plays everywhere; the planet's secret police force, the Happiness Patrol (governed by the vicious and egotistical Helen A, who is obsessed with eliminating unhappiness), roam the streets wearing bright pink and purple uniforms, while they hunt down and kill so-called 'Killjoys', and the TARDIS gets repainted pink so as not to look depressing. While exploring the planet, the Doctor and Ace encounter Trevor Sigma, the official galactic censor, who is visiting Terra Alpha to discover why so many of the population have disappeared.

The Doctor and Ace have a brief period of incarceration in the Waiting Zone (Terra Alpha's version of prisons,) to find out more about the planet's laws against unhappiness, and meet unhappy guard Susan Q, who becomes a firm ally, and allows Ace to escape when she is taken away from the Doctor to be enrolled in the Happiness Patrol. The Doctor, meanwhile, encounters another visitor to the planet, Earl Sigma, a wandering harmonica player who stirs unrest by playing the Blues. Earl and the Doctor venture to the Kandy Kitchen, where most of the missing population of Terra Alpha vanished to, and discover Helen A's twisted executionist, the Kandy Man; a grotesque, sweet-based robot, created by Gilbert M, one of Helen A’s senior advisers.

The Doctor manages to outwit the Kandy Man by gluing him to the floor with lemonade, and he and Earl escape in to the candy pipes below the colony, where dwell the native inhabitants of Terra Alpha, now known as Pipe People. They want to help overthrow the tyranny of Helen A. The Doctor returns to the surface, and begins stirring up trouble, supporting public demonstrations of unhappiness, encouraging the people to revolt, and attempting to expose Helen A's 'population control programme' to Trevor Sigma.

Ace and Susan Q have meanwhile both been recaptured, and have been scheduled to appear in the late show at the Forum, where the penalty for non-entertainment is death. The Doctor and Earl rescue them both, and the four head off to Helen A’s palace for a final showdown, while a revolution takes full effect outside the palace walls. The first to be disposed of is Helen A’s pet Stigorax, Fifi, a rat-dog creature used to hunt down the Pipe People, which is crushed in the pipes below the city when Earl causes an avalanche of crystallised sugar with his harmonica. Then the Pipe People destroy the Kandy Man in a flow of his own fondant surprise (previously used to drown Killjoys). Realising that she is beaten, Helen A attempts to escape the planet in a rocket, only to discover that the rocket has already been commandeered by Gilbert M and Joseph C, her husband. She tries to flee, but the Doctor stops her, and tries to teach her about the true nature of happiness, which can only be understood if counter-balanced by sadness. Helen A at first sneers at the Doctor; but when she discovers the remains of her beloved pet Fifi, she collapses in tears, and finally feels some sadness of her own. The revolution complete, the Doctor and Ace slip away, leaving Earl, Susan Q and the Pipe People to rebuild the planet – but only once the TARDIS has been repainted blue.

In the serial Battlefield, Mordred tells the Doctor, who is threatening him with a sword, to "Look me in the eye. End my life!", which is the same line the Doctor says to a sniper threatening his life in this story.

Helen A was intended to be a caricature of then British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. In 2010, Sylvester McCoy told the Sunday Times: "Our feeling was that Margaret Thatcher was far more terrifying than any monster the Doctor had encountered." The Doctor's calls on the drones to down their tools and revolt was intended as a reference to the 1984-1985 miners' strike.[6] Most of this element was eventually toned down.[5]

Patricia Routledge was originally going to play Helen A,[citation needed] but Sheila Hancock was later cast.

The production team considered transmitting this story in black and white to fit with its intended film noir atmosphere.[5] A fan myth holds that the third episode was supposed to be animated, but this was never the case.[7]

Broadcast and reception

Bassett's complained over the similarity between the Kandy Man in this story and their trademark character.[8] The BBC agreed not to use the Kandy Man again.[5]

In The Discontinuity Guide, Paul Cornell, Martin Day and Keith Topping identify a gay subtext to the story: "there's entrapment over cottaging, the TARDIS is painted pink, and the victim of the fondant surprise is every inch the proud gay man, wearing, as he does, a pink triangle."[9] The story ends with Helen A's husband abandoning her and leaving with another man.

In print

A novelisation of this serial, written by script-writer Graeme Curry, was published by Target Books in February 1990. Adapting his scripts rather than the televised version, Curry's book includes scenes cut during editing and his original envisioning of the Kandy Man with a human appearance, albeit with powdery white skin and edible candy-cane glasses. An unabridged reading of the novelisation by Rula Lenska was released by BBC Audiobooks in July 2009.

Iceworld is a space-trading colony on the dark side of the planet Svartos. It is a mysterious place of terror and rumour ruled by the callous and vindictive Kane, who buys supporters and employees and makes them wear his mark iced in to their flesh. Kane’s body temperature is so cold that one touch from him can kill. In Kane’s lair is a vast cryogenic section where mercenaries and others are being frozen and stored, with their memories wiped for future unquestioning use as part of an army; including a freezer cabinet into which Kane deposits himself when he needs to cool down. There is also, most peculiarly, an aged sculptor who is carving a statue from the ice.

The TARDIS materialises in a refrigeration sales section on Iceworld and the Seventh Doctor and Mel Bush venture outside. They soon meet up with their roguish old acquaintance, Sabalom Glitz, who owes Kane a substantial amount of money. Glitz has come to Svartos to search for a supposed treasure guarded by a dragon. It is located in the icy caverns beyond Iceworld and by chance Glitz has a map, which he won from Kane in a gamble – in fact, Kane wanted him to have the map because he wishes to use Glitz as a pawn in his own search for the treasure. Thus the map contains a tracking device in its seal. Kane in return has Glitz’s ship, the Nosferatu, which he orders destroyed. Without realising he is being used, Glitz heads off on the search with the Doctor in tow – though women are not allowed on the expedition so Mel stays with a young, rebellious waitress they have met called Ace. It is only a matter of time before Ace behaves appallingly to customers and is fired. Mel is stunned to hear that Ace is a human from late twentieth century Earth who only arrived on Iceworld after a bizarre chemistry experiment caused a time-storm in her bedroom.

Kane’s staff are not happy. Once they have taken his coin they are his for life – as Ace wisely realises when she rejects such an offer. Officer Belazs was not so clever, and is keen to escape Kane’s service. She thus arranges for the Nosferatu not to be destroyed, hoping to use the craft to escape Iceworld. When this fails she tries to persuade Officer Kracauer to help her overthrow Kane, but he is one step ahead. Their attempt to alter the temperature in his chambers and kill him fails, so Kane exacts his revenge and kills them both. The same fate awaits the ice sculptor who has now finished his statue, which is of a woman called Xana.

In the ice caverns it has taken time but the Doctor and Glitz have encountered the dragon, which turns out to be a biped which did not so much breathe fire as fire lasers from its eyes, but not the treasure. Mel and Ace have now ventured into the caverns too and they meet their allies and are actually defended by the dragon, which guns down some of Kane’s cryogenically altered soldiers who have been sent into the ice caverns to kill them. The dragon takes them to a room in the ice, which is some sort of control area and contains a pre-recorded hologram message. The hologram explains that Kane is one half of the Kane-Xana criminal gang from the planet Proamnon. When the security forces caught up with them Xana killed herself to avoid arrest, but Kane was captured and exiled to the cold, dark side of Svartos. It turns out that Iceworld is a huge spacecraft and the treasure is a crystal inside the dragon’s head, which acts as the key that Kane needs in order to activate the ship and free himself from exile. The dragon is thus both Kane’s jailer and his chance of freedom.

Kane has overheard the location of the key through the bugging device on the map and now sends his security forces to the ice caverns to bring him the head of the dragon, offering vast rewards for such bravery. He also uses his cryogenic army to cause chaos in the Iceworld shops, driving the customers out and towards the docked Nosferatu. This is brutally accomplished. When the Nosferatu takes off Kane blows it up. The only survivors are a young girl called Stellar and her mother, who have become separated but both survive the massacre. Shortly afterward two of Kane’s troopers succeed in killing the dragon and removing its head, but are killed in the process.

The Doctor has meanwhile realised that Kane has been a prisoner on Svartos for millennia. He retrieves the head of the dragon and is then told by intercom that Kane has captured Ace but is willing to trade her for the “dragonfire”. The Doctor, Glitz and Mel travel to Kane’s private chambers for the exchange. Kane rises to the Doctor’s taunts but still powers up Iceworld as a spacecraft, which now detaches itself from the surface of Svartos. However, when Kane tries to set course for Proamnon to exact his revenge he realises he has been a prisoner so long that the planet no longer exists, having been destroyed through late-stage stellar evolution of its sun. In desperation, he opens a screen in the surface of his ship and lets in hot light rays, which melts him.

The Doctor now loses a companion but also gains one. Glitz has claimed Iceworld as his own spacecraft, renamed Nosferatu II, and Mel decides to stay with him to keep him out of trouble. The Doctor acquires Ace instead, promising to take her home to Perivale via the “scenic route”.

Continuity

This story marks the final appearance of Bonnie Langford as a regular cast member. Langford would only reprise her role as Mel once on television, in Dimensions in Time (1993). Langford departed the series of her own volition after being dissatisfied in the role. In recent years, she has reprised the character in several audio plays by Big Finish Productions, including playing an alternate universe version of Mel in the Doctor Who Unbound audio He Jests at Scars....

The character of Sabalom Glitz, with whom Mel departs to explore the galaxy, first appeared in The Mysterious Planet.

Briggs, who had created the character of Ace, had stated in Ace's character outline for Dragonfire that she had slept with Glitz on Iceworld.[2] The Paul Cornell-written New Adventures novel Love and War implies (and his later novel Happy Endings confirms) that Ace lost her virginity to Glitz.

The Doctor's acceptance of Ace as a companion is part of a larger game that would see its culmination in The Curse of Fenric. In the Virgin New Adventures novel Head Games by Steve Lyons it is revealed that the Seventh Doctor mentally influenced the brighter and more idealistic Mel to leave so that he could become the darker and more manipulative Time's Champion.

This story marks the only farewell scene between the Seventh Doctor and one of his companions. Mel's departure scene was adapted from Sylvester McCoy's screen test, where Janet Fielding was hired to act as a departing companion and a villain.[3] McCoy stated that he always liked that particular screen test script and he lobbied for its inclusion in Dragonfire.

Production

Working titles for this story included Absolute Zero, The Pyramid's Treasure and Pyramid in Space[7].

In one scene, the Doctor distracts a guard by engaging him in a philosophical conversation. One of the guard's lines, about the "semiotic thickness of a performed text", is a quotation from Doctor Who: The Unfolding Text, a 1983 media studies volume by John Tulloch and Manuel Alvarado. Story editor Andrew Cartmel had suggested that writers read The Unfolding Text to familiarise themselves with Doctor Who and its history, which inspired Ian Briggs to quote the academic text in his script, in a playful self-reference.

The literal cliffhanger at the end of episode 1 in which the Doctor lowers himself over a guard rail to dangle over an abyss from his umbrella for no apparent reason comes under frequent criticism for its seeming absurdity. As scripted, the Doctor did have a logical motivation for his actions. According to Cartmel in a later interview, the passage leading to the cliff was meant to be a dead end, leaving the Doctor no option but to scale the cliff face. As shot, however, this reasoning became unclear.[7]

For the effects shot of the death of Kane, a wax bust of the actor's screaming face was made and filmed being melted down to a skull within, this footage being sped up to achieve the effect. Though this is very similar to the death of Toht in Raiders of the Lost Ark, for the family audience of Doctor Who the colour red was carefully avoided in the bust. Ronald Lacey, who had portrayed Toht in the film, was director Chris Clough's first choice to play Kane, but was unavailable [8]

Reception

On UK Gold (now known as G.O.L.D.) in 2003 to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Doctor Who, over a weekend DrWho@40weekend was shown which consisted of the best serials of each Doctor voted by the viewing public. Dragonfire was the serial chosen as the best seventh Doctor serial.[citation needed] DrWho@40weekend also included interviews with the cast and crew of the series overall. The Doctor Who Appreciation Society voted the serial to be the best one of its season.

Target novelisation

1.02. The Renaissance Man

Released February

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Synopsis

To continue Leela’s education, the Doctor promises to take her to the famous Morovanian Museum. But the TARDIS lands instead in a quiet English village, where they meet the enigmatic collector Harcourt and his family.

When people start to die, reality doesn’t appear quite what it was. There’s something sinister going on within the walls of Harcourt’s manor, and the stakes are higher than they can imagine.

The Doctor is about to discover that a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.

Cast

1.04. Energy of the Daleks

Released April

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Synopsis

The Doctor and Leela find themselves in the middle of London at the time of a new energy crisis. The GlobeSphere Corporation seems to have all the answers – but several thousand protestors beg to differ.

What is the connection between the National Gallery and a base on the Moon? Has radical thinker Damien Stephens simply sold out, or does he have a more sinister agenda?

The Doctor has detected a mysterious energy reading. Could it be that the most evil creatures in the universe have returned to claim ultimate victory once and for all?

Travelling through space, the TARDIS suffers an energy drain and crash-lands on the planet Exxilon. The Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith venture outside to investigate the cause of the interference, and become separated. The Doctor is captured by the planet's inhabitants - the savage Exxilons - but escapes. Sarah is attacked by one of the creatures in the TARDIS, and flees into the night, finding a huge white City with a flashing beacon.

When daylight arrives, the Doctor is found by a party of the Marine Space Corps; they take him to their ship, which has been stranded by a power drain. They are on an expedition to mine "Parrinium" - a mineral abundant only on Exxilon - which can cure and give immunity to a deadly space plague. The lives of at least 10 million people depend on the expedition's obtaining the Parrinium and leaving the planet within a month. They show the Doctor some photos they have taken of the nearby City - which the Exxilons worship, sacrificing anyone who ventures too close to it. Sarah does so, and is captured and taken to the Exxilons' caves to be sacrificed by their High Priest.

A ship containing four Daleks now arrives; both the Daleks' ship and their weapons have been rendered useless by the energy drain. The Daleks claim that several of their planetary colonies are suffering from plague; thus they need Parrinium for the same reason as the humans. The Daleks, the Doctor, and the humans form an uneasy alliance to obtain Parrinium and escape Exxilon. While the allies are making their way to the humans' mining dome, the Exxilons ambush them, killing a human and a Dalek and capturing the others. The prisoners are taken to the Exxilon caves where the Doctor interrupts Sarah Jane's sacrifice; therefore, he is also condemned to death. When the dual sacrifice commences, a second party of Daleks, who have replaced their energy weapons with firearms, attack in force, killing a number of Exxilons. They then force the Exxilons and humans to mine Parrinium. The Doctor and Sarah flee into underground tunnels.

The Doctor and Sarah meet a group of subterranean, fugitive Exxilons. Their leader, Bellal, explains that the City was built by the Exxilons' ancestors, who were once capable of space travel. The ancient Exxilons built the City to be capable of maintaining, repairing, and protecting itself. However, fitting the structure with a brain meant that the City no longer needed its creators. On realising this, the Exxilons had tried to destroy the City, but, instead, the City destroyed most of them; the savage surface dwellers and Bellal's group are the only survivors. Bellal's people seek to complete their ancestors' last, failed act - to destroy the City and ensure their race's survival. Bellal sketches some of the markings on the City wall, which the Doctor recognises from a temple in Peru. Bellal also explains that the City supports itself through underground 'roots' and the aerial beacon. The Doctor realises that the beacon must be the cause of the energy drain, and decides to go to the City and resolve the problem.

The Daleks separately come to the same conclusion and create two timed explosives to destroy the beacon. One Dalek supervises two humans placing the explosives, but one of the humans, Galloway, secretly keeps one bomb. Two other Daleks enter the City to investigate the superstructure, but the Doctor and Bellal enter the City just before them. The two parties then proceed through the City, passing a series of progressive intelligence tests. The Doctor reasons that the City has arranged the tests so that only lifeforms with knowledge comparable to that of the City's creators would reach the brain, allowing the City to add the knowledge of the survivors to its databanks. On reaching the central chamber, the Doctor begins to sabotage the City's computer brain; the machine responds by creating two Exxilon-like 'antibodies' to 'neutralise' the Doctor and Bellal. The pair are saved when the Daleks enter and fight the antibodies, and the Doctor and Bellal escape as the City's sabotaged controls begin to malfunction.

When the bomb on the beacon explodes, all power is restored. The Daleks order the humans to load the Parrinium onto their ship. On leaving Exxilon, the Daleks intend to fire a plague missile onto the planet, destroying all life and making future landings impossible, so that they will have the only source of Parrinium. Their true intention for hoarding Parrinium is to blackmail the galactic powers to accept their demands; refusal would mean the deaths of millions. As their ship takes off, Sarah reveals that the Daleks have only bags of sand while the real Parrinium is on the Earth ship, which is now ready to take off. Galloway has smuggled himself and his bomb aboard the Dalek ship; he detonates the bomb, destroying the Dalek ship before it fires the plague missile. Back on Exxilon, the City disintegrates and collapses, the Doctor sadly commenting that the Universe is now down to 699 Wonders.

This is one of two Third Doctor serials (the other being The Claws of Axos) to still have a 90-minute PAL studio recording tape.

The incidental music for this serial was composed by Carey Blyton and performed by the London Saxophone Quartet.

Missing episodes

Episode one of this story was missing from the BBC archives, when they were first fully audited in 1978; eventually, a 525-line NTSC recording was recovered from an overseas television station. A low-quality PAL recording was subsequently recovered, albeit with the opening scene missing. In 1992, this was followed by the recovery of a better-quality 625-line PAL recording from a shipment of episodes returned from Dubai.

VHS and DVD releases

The serial was released on video in an omnibus format in July 1987, the first Doctor Who video to be released on just VHS, instead of both VHS and Betamax. As the PAL version of episode one was not yet known to exist, this used the NTSC version of the episode.

An episodic release (with the PAL version of episode one) was released on 13 February 1995, although episode two was slightly edited due to BBC Video mistakenly using a cut version of episode 2 returned from ABC TV in Australia (episodes 3 & 4 were also from ABC TV), instead of the UK master tapes of episodes 2-4.

The serial will be released on DVD in the UK on 18 June 2012. The region 1 release date is 10 July 2012.[5][6]

The year is 16127. Four decades have passed since the colonists of Nerva Beacon returned to repopulate the once-devastated planet Earth – and the chosen few are finding the business of survival tough.

Far beyond the sterile safety of sanitised Nerva City, transmat scientist Roger Buchman has brought his family to an island surrounded by what they once called Loch Lomond, hoping to re-establish the colony he was forced to abandon many years before.

But something else resides in the Loch. A pestilent alien infestation that the Doctor, beaming in from Nerva City, remembers only too well from his time aboard the Beacon…

he TARDIS arrives close to an unstable area on the interstellar cruise ship “Empress”, which has emerged from hyperspace at the same co-ordinates as the trade ship “Hecate”, causing a dimensional crossover that the Doctor and Romana realise must be repaired and he offers his services to detach the two craft. Rigg, captain of the “Empress”, is suspicious of the Doctor’s alias as a representative of Galactic Salvage but nevertheless agrees to let him try and separate the two craft by reversing the smaller craft at full thrust. The Doctor is accompanied on this task by Riggs co-pilot, Secker, who, it becomes apparent, is a drug addict. He is hooked on the organic substance Vraxoin, whose origins are unknown, but whose properties are lethal and dangerous. Secker heads off alone into the unstable area and while there is attacked by a clawed monster and left for dead. K-9 arrives from the TARDIS and is tasked with cutting through the locked ships.

Also aboard the “Empress” are a zoologist named Tryst and his assistant Della, with their CET (Continual Event Transmuter) Machine, which stores portions of planets on electro-magnetic crystals. Their collection is large and ethically dubious. Their most recent stop was on the planet Eden where one of their expedition was killed, but both Tryst and Della are reluctant to provide too many details. Romana, however, examines the Eden projection when she is on her own and is sure she has seen eyes staring out at her from the dark and forbidding jungle. When she later looks at the projection again an insect appears from within it and stings her.

The Doctor and Rigg find the wounded Secker and send him to the sickbay where he dies. When the Doctor finds Seckers drugs stash he is prevented from acting when someone stuns him and steals the evidence. Once he has recovered, he returns with Rigg and K-9 to cut through the power source. Once a hole is made a roaring creature appears, flexing its vicious claws.

K-9 repels the creature with blaster fire while the Doctor and Rigg refit the segment of the craft. The Doctor continues to try to separate the two ships while also trying to source the Vraxoin on the craft. Rigg is positive there are no drugs on his craft, but events soon take a sinister turn, which proves him wrong. When Romana wakes up an unseen hand spikes her refresher drink with the drug, but it is Rigg who ends up drinking it. He soon starts to show signs of addiction and altered perception and heads off alone as his cravings grow.

After the Doctor and K-9 fail once more to separate the two ships, he spots a silver-suited stranger and pursues him through the passenger deck and into the blurred area between ships. The Doctor loses his quarry, but manages to relieve him of a radiation band which he dropped and proves that he was on Tryst’s expeditionary team in the past. The clawed monsters are loose near there. When the Doctor flees back to the “Empress” he discovers Rigg has become addicted and it becomes apparent that Tryst thinks Della is the smuggler, in league with her late partner Stott, who was killed on Eden. Two Azurian Customs and Excise officers now board the craft, Fisk and Costa, and start to suspect the Doctor of smuggling because of the traces of Vraxoin in his pocket. The Doctor and Romana make a break for it and head to the CET Machine room where they evade capture by leaping directly into the projection.

Inside the projection, the Doctor and Romana are menaced by the jungle plants and must hide to avoid the clawed monsters, which obviously originate from Eden and roam freely in this section of the planet. They soon meet up with the fugitive previously sighted by them both, Stott, who takes them to his sheltered cubicle. It seems that he is a Major in the Intelligence Section of the Space Corp and has been hiding in the projection for the past 183 days while he tries to establish the source of the Vraxoin, which he knows is from Eden but not from which organic source. He also names the vicious creatures as Mandrels. The trio exit the projection and return to find the “Empress” under siege from the marauding beasts, which have now started killing the passengers (as shown in the picture above). Rigg too is killed, shot down by Fisk during a mad search for Vrax.

The Doctor, Romana and K-9 evade the creatures while trying once more to separate the two spacecraft. In the process, the Doctor incinerates one of the Mandrels, which disintegrates into raw Vraxoin. The beasts are evidently the source of the drug. He reapplies himself to the technical task and, with the help of his companions, the ships are finally parted – but the Doctor disappears from the “Empress” in the process.

The separation has been a success, with the elusive Dymond having returned to his own craft at the right time. Fisk warns him not to leave too quickly, but Dymond is keen to get away. The Doctor is also on the “Hecate”, having been caught up in the separation of the two ships, and, without being noticed, soon finds evidence of Dymond's complicity in the drug running project. Dymond returns to the “Empress” by shuttle, and the Doctor smuggles himself on board. Back on the “Empress”, Romana finds Della and confides in her that Stott is still alive, but Della is soon arrested by the Customs men and they are separated.

The Doctor rejoins Romana on the “Empress” and says he has seen evidence that the smugglers are planning to use an intuca laser to transport the Eden projection between the two crafts. He is now certain that Dymond’s ally is Tryst and, when Stott arrives, he also confirms the source of the Vraxoin. Fisk and Costa turn up to arrest the Doctor, but Stott pulls rank and warns them to back off. In another part of the craft, Tryst is reunited with Della and confesses all about his part in the smuggling racket. She flees when a Mandrel arrives and distracts Tryst, who is rapidly trying to escape with Dymond. They head back to the “Hecate”.

The Doctor has meanwhile rounded up the Mandrels using K-9’s dog whistle, having worked out they are pacified by ultrasonics. He leads them all back into the projection and then slips out, leaving the creatures trapped. His next task is to reverse the CET transfer process to stop the smugglers getting away with the Vraxoin supply. After allowing Tryst and Dymond to transport the Eden projection to the "Hecate", he activates the CET and traps them within a new projection – they are ready for the Customs Officers to walk in and arrest them. With the ships separated and the drug runners caught, the Doctor and friends slip away back to the TARDIS with the Eden project. The creatures will be projected back to their native planets. One can only hope that nobody else discovers the Mandrels' secret.

This story would be the final Doctor Who serial written by Bob Baker, who worked on it alone.

Alan Bromly is credited with directing this story, but he quit part-way through filming as a result of a vehement dispute with Tom Baker. As a result, Producer Graham Williams wound up having to complete the director's duties uncredited. The unpleasantness of this whole incident led Williams to decide that he had wished to leave the series. Bromly never directed another story for the series and in fact went into full retirement soon afterwards.

Outside references

This is one of the few Fourth Doctor stories to have a strong moral message, in this case against drug abuse and the illegal drug trade. The drug in question was originally going to be called "xylophilin", or "zip". However, Lalla Ward was worried that the name would sound appealing to children, so it was changed to "vraxoin" instead. However, K-9 still mentions vraxoin as having the scientific code "XYP".

The British tabloidnewspaperThe Sun wrote that the Mandrels were terrifying monsters, as no publicity shots had been taken for them (which, as later reported, was untrue). However, the majority of critics were more scathing and many of them saw the Mandrels as being thoroughly unconvincing (particularly the Doctor Who Appreciation Society, which described them as "cute rejects from The Muppet Show").

Synopsis

Business is bad for intergalactic media mogul Augustus Scullop, whose Trans-Gal empire is on the rocks. But, having retreated to his own private planet, Transmission, Scullop is about to gamble his fortune on a new show, made with an entirely new technology. And the name of that show… is Laser.

Back in the real world, far from the realms of small screen sci-fi fantasies about monsters and aliens, the Doctor is interested only in watching Test Match cricket… but finds himself drawn into Scullop’s world when his new travelling companion, Flip, is snatched from inside the TARDIS.

So, while the Doctor uncovers the terrible secret of Trans-Gal’s new tech, Flip battles to survive in a barren wilderness ruled over by the indestructible Lord Krarn and his pig-like servants, the Warmongers. And the name of that wilderness… is ‘Stevenage’.